At our dojo, they announced that on December 6, Kyoshi will be awarded his 8th degree black belt on December 6th. WOW, that's pretty amazing. So what do we know about Kyoshi?
I have the luck to train in the Lavallee National Training Center (HQ - NTSC) so Kyoshi is frequently on the floor or teaching class. He runs many of our Black Belt candidate classes himself. Which is great. Kyoshi is one of the more interesting and charismatic guys around. He's a 7th degree black belt, a successful business owner, has thousands of students through his system, and works with hundreds of industry leaders thru MAUI.
I intend to get the whole story on Kyoshi's professional resume directly from him one of these days (degrees, ring record, training) but as best I can tell from a quick web review:
Kyoshi is interested in blending the martial arts. While this is very trendy these days, it seems that he's been a pioneer in this area. While his base training is kenpo, he has studied and blended: Chinese Kenpo, Tae Kwon Do, Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Wrestling, Judo, Kali/Escrima, Chinese Kung Fu, Israeli Combatives( Extreme Hisardut ), Full Contact Kickboxing, Boxing, XMA and weaponry.
On the wall in our dojo, there is a certificate awarding him a 7th degree in Blended Martial Arts from Degerberg Internationa. This certificate on the wall is signed byRobert Beal, Greg Tearney (10th Dan), John McSweeney, and Fred Degerberg.
John McSweeney was a student of Ed Parker, the father of American Kenpo.
There is another certificate signed only by Greg Tearney awarding Steve Lavallee a 7th degree in Karate-Do.
There is alot of Muy Thai in our system plus XMA . He trains sometimes with his friend Shihan Moti, a champion in five martial arts with base training in Israeli Krav Maga. In the last few years, Steve Lavallee has been training in BJJ at Gracie Academy. Kyoshi's base training is Kenpo. Our curriculum evolves with periodic additions and changes in the kata and defense techniques. For instance, when I was a white belt, we learned mostly kenpo self defense. Recently, we've learned new jitsu-type self-defense. Kyoshi gave a demo of standup BJJ self defense at a recent show which was put up on youtube.
Another of Kyoshi's interests is the Maui Program and working with other sensei to improve the overall management of martial skills and foster exchange among different martial arts.
On October 19th, 2007, Kyoshi Steve LaVallee was the Keynote Speaker at the EFC Summit Keynote in Miami.
Two notes: One, Master KC is married to Kyoshi Steve Lavallee. Second, Kyoshi's nephew (his brother's son) shares his name and also trains in our system (4th or 5th degree black belt) - I've seen web posts where the two were confused.
There is more information about Kyoshi on the Lavallee Official Website. This post updates an earlier one about Kyoshi and my sensei - KC Lavallee.
3 comments:
Thanks for this -- I've been curious about who's awarded his higher degree belts. I had no idea it was Greg Tearney!
(I do know his 1st degree was awarded by Lee Thompson, student of Al and Jim Tracy, students of Ed Parker, student of William Chow, student of Thomas Young and of Young's teacher, James Mitose.)
Do you know if the upcoming 8th dan is blended martial arts or karate-do?
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Obtaining your black belt is indeed the beginning
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